Ink input, via touchscreen or pointing device, provides users the ability to apply freeform input to an electronic authoring environment. For example, when using the Illustrator® graphic design software (available from Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif.), the Keynote® presentation application (available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), Bamboo™ Paper drawing application (available from Wacom Co., Ltd. of Kazo, Japan) or another electronic authoring environment, a user may apply a pen, stylus, or finger via a touchscreen or select a pen input option in a user interface for input via a mouse or other pointing device to provide ink input.
Although users may select various effects for the ink input, affecting the size (e.g., 6 point, 8 pixels, ¼ inch), shape (e.g., squared, rounded, etc.), color, transparency, and texture (e.g., a crayon texture, a paintbrush texture, a calligraphy texture) of the displayed ink object, these effects are basic shape and color effects and users often desire greater ability to highlight content with ink input than is afforded by basic shape and color choices. Additionally, for the user to apply multiple shape and color effects to ink input, the ink input must be broken into multiple objects, with individual effects being applied to each object, thus increasing the workload on the user, and requiring additional system resources to maintain those separate objects in memory.